Significance of Tailings Treatment in Beneficiation Process

Tailings are the slag slurry discharged after the raw ore is crushed, ground and sorted, and useful concentrates are selected. The treatment of tailings involves environmental protection and rational use of resources. Therefore, it is of great significance to properly handle the tailings of the concentrator.

The number of tailings is large, and the yield is generally 80% to 90%. If a large amount of tailings is not properly handled, the harm will be great. The tailings water discharged from the beneficiation plant often contains a large number of chemicals and harmful substances, which are harmful to the human body, livestock, fish, and farmland. Therefore, the tailings of the concentrator cannot be discharged arbitrarily.

The tailings contain a lot of useful ingredients that can be re-developed and utilized. There have been many examples of comprehensive utilization of tailings resources at home and abroad. For example, the tailings of the Concentrator of Tonglushan Mine in Hubei Province are rich in useful components such as gold, silver, copper, and iron. In recent years, with the development of beneficiation technology, the mine adopts weak magnetic-strong magnetic separation technology to rebuild tailings, and tens of thousands of tons of iron concentrate are recovered from the tailings every year. The tailings are being further re-grinded and re-selected, so that the gold, silver, copper, iron, and other useful minerals in the tailings can be fully utilized, greatly improving the economic benefits of the mine.

Treatment method of tailings

1. Recycling useful components of tailings resources by the tailings dewatering screen. Adopt advanced technology and reasonable technology to re-select the tailings to maximize the recovery of useful components in the tailings. This can further reduce the number of tailings. Some concentrators are developing towards no tailings.

2. Tailings are used as fillers in the goaf of underground mining, that is, water-sand-washing fillers or aggregates for cemented filling.

3. Use tailings as raw materials for building materials.

4. Cover soil on the tailings dumping ground to create land, plant crops or plant trees for afforestation.

5. Store tailings piles in specially built tailings ponds, which is currently the most widely used tailings treatment method in most concentrators.